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1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to telecommunications systems, and in particular, to telecommunications systems that provide simultaneous voice and broadband services over ATM connections over the local loop.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The telephone wires to the residence are known as the local loop. The local loop has primarily been used to carry POTS traffic and low speed data using modems. POTS is an acronym for xe2x80x9cPlain Old Telephone Servicexe2x80x9d and generally entails voice traffic. Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) technology has been developed to provide greater bandwidth to the local loop. DSL technology superimposes high bandwidth data over the analog POTS traffic on the local loop. This high bandwidth data is transparent to the POTS operation of the local loop. At the central office, the high bandwidth data is removed from the twisted pair and provided to a separate data network. The POTS traffic remains on the twisted pair and is provided to a class 5 switch. As a result, DSL technology allows high bandwidth data and POTS traffic to co-exist on the local loop. POTS traffic is still handled by a class 5 switch in the conventional manner, but the high bandwidth data is removed from the line before the class 5 switch.
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) technologies have also been developed to provide broadband transport and switching capability to Local Area Networks (LANs), Wide Area Networks (WANs), and other networks. Prior systems do not contemplate converting the voice traffic to ATM before it is placed on the DSL local loop. This is because standard class 5 switches on the network side of the local loop do not typically handle ATM voice traffic. As a result, ATM technology has not been combined with DSL technology to carry residential POTS traffic. POTS traffic carried by a DSL local loop still requires processing by a complex and expensive class 5 switch.
The invention is a communications system for providing communications services to an end user at a residence. The communications system comprises: a residential communications hub, a network multiplexer, telephone wiring, a service node, a broadband metropolitan area network ring, and a broadband wide area network ring.
The residential communications hub is located at the residence. It is comprised of a plurality of communications interfaces that communicate with a plurality of end-user communications devices that are located in the residence and that use a plurality of communications formats. The communications interfaces convert between the communications formats and an ATM format. At least one of the communications interfaces is an analog telephony interface that communicates with a telephone that is located in the residence and that uses an analog telephony format. The analog telephony interface converts between the analog telephony format and the ATM format. The residential communications hub is further comprised of a Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) interface that is coupled to the communications interfaces. It communicates with the communications system using an ATM over DSL format.
The network multiplexer converts between the ATM over DSL format and an ATM over broadband format. The telephone wiring connects the residential communications hub and the network multiplexer and carries the ATM over DSL format. The service node receives and processes end-user communications service requests and initiates the establishment of ATM communications paths to support the service requests. The broadband metropolitan area network ring provides ATM over broadband communications paths between the network multiplexer and the service node. The broadband wide area network ring is connected to the service node and provides ATM over broadband communications paths to the service node.
In some embodiments of the invention, the communications system further comprises: a second service node that is connected to the broadband wide area network ring, a second broadband metropolitan area network ring that is connected to the second service node, a second network multiplexer that is connected to the broadband metropolitan area network ring, a second residential hub that is located at a second residence to provide services to a second end-user, and second telephone wiring that connects the second network multiplexer to the second residential hub. The communications system is operational to provide a voice over ATM connection between the residential hubs in response to a service request directed to one of the service nodes.